Monitoring of hydrogen along the San Andreas and Calaveras faults in central California in 1980–1984

Abstract

Hydrogen (H2) has been monitored continuously at 1.5‐m depth at nine sites along the San Andreas and Calaveras faults in central California since December 1980. Site characteristic small noninstrumental diurnal variations were recorded during quiescent periods at most sites. Abrupt H2 changes were observed concurrently at two sites on the Calaveras fault; some of these were correlated with oscillatory fault slips. Large (1000–4000 ppm) H2 increases were recorded at some sites on the San Andreas fault between July 1982 and November 1983, which may be correlated with eleven M ≥ 5 earthquakes that occurred near Coalinga during this period. We attribute both the H2 increases and the triggering of the earthquakes to a large‐scale compressive stress field within the ductile mafic crust near the plate boundary. The stress perhaps caused bulging of the base of the brittle upper crust and thus caused dilation of the San Andreas fault zone, allowing the escape of pent‐up H2 generated by hydration reaction of the mafic crust. At the same time, mobile serpentinites may have squeezed into the seismogenic fault beneath the Coalinga area triggering the earthquakes.